THE WIFE AND MOTHER AT A PRIMARY.BETSEY’S VIEW OF THE RESULTS.
THE WIFE AND MOTHER AT A PRIMARY.
BETSEY’S VIEW OF THE RESULTS.
Jest at this minute we see the new Local Preacher, comin’ down the road in a open buggy, and Betsey said to once she must be goin’, for her folks would be a worryin’ after her. Says I, as she hurried to the door,
“Mebby you will get a ride.”
“Oh no,” says she, “I had a great deal rather walk afoot, I think there is nothing like walking afoot for strengthenin’ the mussles.”
I am glad she felt so, for I see he didn’t ask her to ride. But as she said, health is a blessing, and it is a treat indeed to have strong mussles.
The summer after the Donation and Fare dawned peacefully and fair on Jonesville and the earth. The weather was pleasant, and things seemed to go on as Sister Wesley Minkley and I could wish them to, between her Whitfield, and our Tirzah Ann. Thomas Jefferson every fortnight or so dressed up in his best and went in the direction of Lawyer Snow’s. Hesaidthat “he went to a new protracted meetin’ that they had jest started up that way.” I don’t say that he didn’t, but I will say that they protracted ’em pretty late. I don’t make no matches nor break none, but I must say that things look promisin’ and agreable in the direction of the children. Whitfield Minkley, and Maggy Snow, is agreeable to me,very; so they be to Josiah.
Josiah thinks considerable of Maggy’s bein’ so fore-handed. I saymyselfif she hadn’t but one hand in the line of riches, or no hand at all, she would still bemychoice. She is a straight-forward sensible girl—with no affectation, or sham about her. She reminds me of what Samantha Allen was, before she had changed her maiden name of Smith. Whether they are really engaged or not, I don’t know, for Thomas J. is such a hand for fun that you can’t find out anything from him no more than you could from the wind. But good land! there is time enough. The children shan’t marry anybody in one good five years from now, if I have my say about it. But as I told Josiah, I remember we was a talkin’ it over last fall, as we sot out a new orchard—I was a holdin’ the trees for him and says I—“Josiah it is our duty to get apple trees and children started in the right direction, and then let them take their time to grow.”
He said, “Yes, so it was.”
He feels well about it, as I say, it is agreeable to us both, and then Josiah’s crops looked well, the crows took a little of his corn, but it had come on, and bid fair to be a first rate crop. And as for his oats and barley and winter wheat, they couldn’t be bettered.
The Editer of the Augur had brought home his bride, a good lookin’ light complected woman, who seemed devoted to him and the two twins. They went to house keepin’ in a bran new house, and it was observed that he bought a cottage bedstead that didn’t have any posts, and life for him seemed blest and peaceful.
Betsey Bobbet did not pine away and expire asmight be expected by cursory readers of her last poem in the Jonesville Gimlet. But any deep philosipher who had made the Human Race, his (or her) study for any length of time, never worrys over such efushions, knowin’ that affliction is like the measles, and if they break out freely in pimples and poetry, the patients are doin’ well.
Betsey had been pretty quiet for her through the winter and spring, she hadn’t made overtures only to two more—which was a little pill doctor, and a locul preacher who had been sent round by the Conference. As she remarked to me, “It is so natural to get attached to your minister and your physician.”
As I said the summer sun basked peacefully down and Jonesville almost asleep under her rays, seemed the abode of Repose. But where was there a Eden fenced in, but what Ambition let down the bars, or climbed over the fence. But this was a noble Ambition, a Ambition I was proud to see a gettin’ over the fence. It was a Ambition that leaped over into my door yard the very day I heard the blessed tidings, that Horace Greeley was run up for President.
I had always respected Horace, he had always been dear to me. And when I say dear, I want it to be plainly understood—I insist upon it that itshallbe understood—that I mean dear, in a scriptural, and political sense. Never sense I united myself to Josiah Allen, has my heart swerved from that man so much as the breadth of a horse hair. But Horace’s honestpure views of life, has endeared him to every true lover of the Human Race, Josiah Allen’s wife included. Of course we don’t think alike on every subject. No 2 human bein’s ever did. Horace and I differ on some things such as biled vittles, Wimmen’s Rights, and cream biscuit. He don’t believe in biled vittles, and it is my favorite beverage. He is a unbeliever in salaratus, I myself don’t see how he makes cream biscuit fit to eat without it. And he—not havin’ me to influence him—hadn’t come out on to the side of wimmen’s havin’ a Right. But as a general thing, Horace Greeley was to be found onto the side of Right. He was onto the side of the weak, the down trodden. He was always a plottin’ to do some good to somebody, and I felt that if the eyes of his spectacles could be once opened onto this subject of wimmen’s havin’ a Right, that he would be more help to us, than a army of banners. Months before he was run up for President I had felt this, and in the fall of 1871, as Josiah was a settin’ by the fire alone, he a readin’ the World and I a knittin’ says I to him,
“Josiah are you willin’ that I should go down to New York village on a tower, and have a talk with Horace about the Human race and wimmen’s havin’ a right?”
Josiah didn’t seem to be willin’, he looked up from the World, and muttered somethin’ about “Tammany’s ring.”
I don’t know when the old Smith blood so riled upin me as it did then. I remember I riz right up where I set in front of the stove, and waved my right hand, I was so excited, and says I,
“Josiah Allen if you have lived with me goin on 15 years, and if you haint no more confidence in me than to think I would accept a ring from old Tammany, then I will stay to home.” Says I, “Josiah Allen, I never mistrusted till this very minute that you had a jealous hair in your head,” says I, “you have fell 35 cents in my estimation to night,” says I, “you know Josiah Allen that I haint never wore no jewelrey sense I jined the Methodist meetin’ house, and if I did, do you spose I would accept a ring from old Tammany, that sneakin’ old Democrat? I hate old Tammany, I perfectly despise the old man.”
I felt so imposed upon and worked up, that I started right off to bed and forgot to wind up the clock, or shet the buttery door, for I remember the clock run down and the cat eat the inside out of the custard pies. Wall from that time I never had opened my head to Josiah about goin’ off on a tower. But I wrote Horace a letter on the subject of Wimmen’s Rights, as good a letter as I knew how, beggin’ him to follow the example of J. Allen’s wife, and all other noble reformers and put his shoulder blades to the wheel.
His answer wasn’t so satisfactory as I could have wished it was, and I knew I could do better to standface to face with him. But as I say I don’t know as I should ever have started up agin, if that great and good man hadn’t been run up for President.
Now some thought it looked shiftless in the Democrats, and kinder poverty struck in ’em, to think they had got all out of President stuff, and had to borry some of the Republicans. But good land! where is there a housekeeper but what will once in a while get out of tea and have to borry a drawin’ of her neighbors? If good honest, smart men was skurse amongst ’em, if they had got kinder run out of President timber, and wanted to borry a little, why it would have looked dreedful tight and unneighberly in the Republicans to have refused ’em, when they was well on it too for President stuff, they could have spared two or three jest as well as not, even if they never got ’em paid back. But the Democrats only wanted to borry one, and that was Horace. The Democrats thought everything of Horace because he put a bail onto Jeff. Davis. Josiah said at the time that it raised him 25 cents or more in his estimation. At the same time it madded some of the Republicans. But it didn’t me. You see I believe jest what I think is right, and pay no attention to what the other folks who are standin’ on my doorstep may happen to believe.
Nobody that stands on my platform—let ’em stand as close to me as they are a mind to—not one of ’emis answerable to God for what thoughts and principles are performin’ in my mind and soul. Josiah Allen’s wife hangs on to nobody’s apron strings only jest her own.
As far as the party on my doorstep believe what I think is right, I am with ’em heart and hand, but I am not one to shet up my eyes and walk up blindly and hang on to anybody’s apron strings, not even Horace Greeley’s, as anybody can see in the matter of biled vittles, Wimmen’s Rights, and cream biscuit. To think you have got to believe every thing your party does, seems jest as unreasonable to me, as it would when you go out to pick greens, to pick skunk cabbage because cow cabbage is good and wholesome. Why skunk cabbage is pison, jest as pison as sikuta or ratsbane. Now the doctrine of free love as some folks preach it up, folks in both parties, why the smell of it is jest as obnoxious in my political and moral nostrals as the smell of sikuta is, and if anything smells worse than that, I don’t want to go near it. Pick out the good and leave the bad, is my theme in greens and politix.
Now about puttin’ that bail onto Jeff. Davis, though as I say it madded my party, I was glad he put it on. Jeff. was a mean critter no doubt, but I don’t know as chokin’ him to death with a rope would have made him any better. I say this idee of chokin’ folks to death to reform ’em, is where we show the savagein us, which we have brought down from our barbarious ancestors. We have left off the war paint and war whoops, and we shall leave off the hangin’ when we get civilized.
Says some to me, “Look at our poor Northern boys that suffered and died in Libby prison and Andersonville through Jefferson.”
I says to ’em, “Would chokin’ Jefferson bring ’em back? if so I would choke him myself.—not to kill him of course, but so he would feel it, I can tell you.”
No! it was all over, and past. All the sin, and all the sorrow of the war. And God had out of it brought a great good to the black Africans, and the nation, in the way all good is generally brought, through sufferin’ and tribulation. And if a nation is made perfect through sufferin’ what should be the first lesson she should show to the world?
I say, it should be the lesson that Christ and his disciples taught, that of all Heavenly graces, charity is the greatest. The way I looked at it was this. The South that had been so braggin’, and selfish, and overbearin’, stood at the door of the proud and victorious North, like a beggar, harmless, destitute and ragged. Where is the rich happy woman that wouldn’t give a nut-cake to a sick beggar? I don’t see myself how she could help givin’ one, if she had any generosity and nobility and—nut-cakes.
Jeff. Davis was all broke to pieces, and he wanted abail put onto him so life could grip holt of him agin, and carry him I hope towards that heaven he turned his back to, when he was a fightin’ to uphold slavery. Horace helped put that bail on, and so did other noble men; and all the ministers in creation, of every persuasion, might all stand up in a row in our door yard, and preach to me 2 days, and then I wouldn’t believe that H. G. would turn his hand to anything he thought was wrong.
If there was any fault in him about this, it was on the side of charity and mercy, and as a general thing that end of the board don’t tip up any too fur in this selfish world. As a general thing, folks don’t teter on that end of the board so much as they do on the other.
So, as I said, when I heard that Horace was run up for President, I was so happy that my heart would have sung for joy if it had been anything of a singer, for now, thinks’es I, with that great and good and honest man for President, all he wants is the influence of Josiah Allen’s wife to make him all the sufferin’ nation needs. I felt that now the time had come for J. Allen’s wife to come out boldly and put her shoulder blades to the wheel. I felt that if Horace could be perswaded to draw and Josiah Allen’s wife to push, nothin’ could hender that wheel from movin’ right onward into Freedom. And so my principles, and the great doctrine so goared me, that I couldn’t get no rest, I felt that Imustsee Horace before he got sotdoun in the high chair, because you know when any body gets sot doun they don’t love to nestle round and make no changes. So I atted Josiah about it, but he didn’t seem to be willin’. I didn’t come right out and tell him how I was xcercised on Wimmin’s Rights, knowin’ he was a unbeliever, but I says to him,
“Josiah, Jonesville is a good village, but nobody wants to be tied doun even to a barell of sale molasses. Josiah, I do want to see some other village, I do want to go to New York on a tower.”
Says he, “Samantha, what under the sun do you want to go for at your age, why do you want to start up and go a caperin’ round the country?”
I thought a minute, and then says I, “I want to see Miss Woodhull, and give her a real talkin’ to, about free love. I want to convince her she is in the wrong on it,” and then says I in a kind of a blind way, “I have got other business that I feel that it is my duty to tend to.”
But he didn’t seem to be willin’, and I wouldn’t go without his consent. And so it went on, Josiah hangin’ back, and my principles a goarin’ me. It wore on me. My dresses begun to hook up looser on me, and finally one mornin’, as I dallied over my second potato, and my third egg, not eatin’ ’em with no appetite, Josiah says to me, “What does ail you, Samantha, you don’t eat nothin’, and you seem to be a runnin’ doun.”
Then I broached the subject to him agin. I expectedhe would object. But he looked at me in a silent, melankolly way for about one minute, and half or three quarters of another, and then says he in a gentle but firm accent,
“Samantha if I can sell the old critter you can go.”
So I was left in uncertainty (as it were) for I knew he wouldn’t sell it for less than the price he had sot it, and no knowin’ whether it would fetch it or not. But I felt in my heart a feelin’ that I should go off on that tower. And so I gradually but silently began makin’ preperations, I quietly and calmly took two breadths out of my brown alapaca dress and goared ’em and put a overskirt on to it, for I was determined not to go to New York village without a overskirt on to me. Not that I care about such triflin’ things myself, but I felt that I was representin’ a great cause, and I wasn’t goin’ to put our cause to open shame by not havin’ on a overskirt. Men sometimes say that great and strong minded wimmen are slack in the matter of dressin’ up, I was determined to show ’em that that weakness wasn’t mine. I wasn’t goin’ to be all tattered out, with ends and tag locks of bows and pleatin’s, and tow curls and frizzles, but I felt there was a megium course to pursue, and I was determined to hit against it.
Then agin I felt that the color of my dress suited the great cause. I wasn’t goin’ rigged out in pinkmuslin, or sky-blue cambric, or anything of that sort. A good solid sensible brown seemed to be jest the thing. Black would have seemed too much in the mournin’ line, as if we was despondent when we wasn’t. White book muslin would have looked as if my principles was too thin, and I was too light and triflin’, and didn’t realize the great issues dependent on to me. No; brown alapaca with a overskirt I felt was jest what the anxious nation required of me, as I stood face to face with the future President of the United States—with my spectacles calmly gazin’ into his’en, a influencin’ him in the cause of Right.
Another reason, I won’t deny, influenced me in tryin’ to get a good pattern for my overskirt so as to have it set good, (I got it of Miss Gowdey and made it a little bigger round the waist,) I thought more’n likely as not Horace’s and my picture would be took, and in the future would be hung up by the side of that good honest old Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.
“Josiah Allen’s wife influencin’ Horace in the Great Cause of Wimmen’s Rights.”
And though I haint vain, I thought how poor it would be, and what a eye sore to the nation if my dress didn’t hang good. And how pleasin’ it would be both to America and Josiah, to see me dressed in a noble and becomin’ way. So I finished my overskirt, and silently done up my best petticoat, and inthe same mysterious manner I put some tape trimmin’ on to the bottom of it.
And so the long and tegus days passed away from me. I felt that suspense was a wearin’ on me. Josiah see that it was. And on Saturday mornin’ I see him pensively leanin’ over the barn yard fence, mewsin’ as it was, and pretty soon he hitched up the old mare, and went to Jonesville, and when he came back he says to me, in sorrowful tones but some composed,
“Samantha, you can start to-morrow if you want to, I have sold the old critter.”
And then he added pensively. “I wish you would have a few griddle cakes for supper, with some maple molasses on to ’em.”
On the next Monday mornin’, I let loose to my feelin’s as it was, and begun to make open preparations. I baked up the best vittles the house afforded, for I determined Josiah should live like a king durin’ his temporary widowerhood. Then after I got through bakin’ and got the house clean as a pin, I commenced to fix a dress to wear on the journey, for of course I wasn’t goin’ to wear my best dress with a overskirt on the railway. I am a master hand for bein’ careful of my clothes, and I knew it would almost spile one of my best dresses, but I had a calico dress as good as new. It was a dark blue ground work with a handsome sprig on it, and after I took up two tacks in it, I felt that it was jest the thing to wear on the tower.
I had jest put it on, and had got the lookin’ glass onto the floor to see if it cleared the floor enough, when Thomas Jefferson come in, and says he,
“Your dress is too short, mother, I hate to see short dresses, they look so hihorsical.”
I answered him with dignity as I looked over my shoulder into the glass,
“Samantha Allen, whose maiden name was Smith, haint a goin’ to mop out the cars for the railroad company, free gratis for nothin’,” and I added with still more impressive dignity, as I hung up the lookin’ glass, “what you mean by hihorsical I don’t know.”
He said it was a compound word derived from the Greek, “high,” to intoxicate, and “horsical,” a race horse, which two words strained off from the dead language and biled doun into English meant “hihorsical.”
I told him “I didn’t care for his Greek, I didn’t care if it was dead, not a mite, I shouldn’t cry over it,” and I told him further, fixin’ my gray eyes upon him serenely, “that there was two or three words that wasn’t dead, that he would do well to strain off, and bile doun, and take ’em for a stiddy drink.”
He wanted to know what they was, and I told him plainly they was “Mind your own business.”
He said he would bile ’em doun, and take ’em stiddy as a clock, and pretty soon he started off for Jonesville—he had staid to home that day to help his father. And I went on with a serene face a makin’ my preparations. Josiah didn’t hardly take his eyes off of my face, as I made ’em. He sot in a dejected way, a claspin’ the World in his two hands, with a sad look onto his face. He hated to think of my leavin’ him, and goin’ off on a tower. I see he did, and I says to him in a real affectionate tone,
“Josiah, haint there nothin’ I can do for you in New York, haint you got any errands to the village?”
He rubbed his bald head in deep thought for a minute or two, and then says he, (he thinks everything of the World,) “The nigger barber’s wife to Jonesville came pretty near runnin’ away with another nigger last night; if you have time I should love to have you go to the Editer of the World and tell him of it. I am afraid,” says he, and a gloomy, anxious look over-spread his eye-brow, “I am afraid he haint heard of it.”
I answered him in a soothin’ tone, “That I guessed he had heard of it before now, I guessed it would be in the next week’s World,” and Josiah kinder chirked up and went out to work.
The next day I took ten pounds of butter, and 4 dozen of eggs and Josiah carried me to Jonesville to trade ’em out, to get necessarys for me to wear on my tower. I didn’t begrech layin’ out so much expense, neither did Josiah, for we both knew that as I was gettin’ pretty well along in years, it wasn’t likely I should ever go off on a tower agin. And then I had been prudent and equinomical all my days, and it wasn’t no more than right that I should launch out now in a liberal way.
But all the time I was workin’ over that butter, and all the time I was countin’ out them eggs, Horace was in my mind. Hangin’ such hopes onhim as I hung, I felt that I must do somethin’ openly, to give vent to my patriotic feelin’s in regard to him.
I never had wore hats, for I felt that I was too old to wear ’em. But now as I was startin’ off to Jonesville to get necessarys to wear on my mission to that great and good Horace, I felt that principle called on me to come out openly, and wear a white hat with a feather. And I felt that Josiah as the husband of Josiah Allen’s wife, and the carrier of her to get them necessarys, must also wear one.
The father of Josiah, had left to him with other clothin’, a large white fur hat. As the old gentleman hadn’t wore it for some 40 or 50 years prior to and before his desease, (he died when Thomas J. was a baby) it wasn’t in the hight of fashion. But says I, “Josiah Allen in the name of Horace and principle will you wear that hat?”
Says he, “I hate to like a dog, for they will think I have stole the Baptist steeple, and am wearin’ it for a hat.” But seein’ my sad dissapointed look, says he, “If you say so Samantha, I will wear it for once.”
Says I with dignity, “It is not your wife, formally Samantha Smith, that says so, it is principle.”
“Wall!” says he “fetch it on.” Josiah was awful clever to me, I guess it is natural for all men to conduct themselves cleverer when they are about to lose their pardners for a spell.
The hatwas big. I couldn’t deny it. And Josiahbein’ small, with no hair to fill it up, as I lifted it up with both hands and set it onto him, his head went right up into it, the brim takin’ him right across the bottom of his nose.
Says he, out from under the hat, “There hain’t no use a talkin’ Samantha, I can’t never drive the old mare to Jonesville in this condition, blind as a bat.”
But I explained it to him, that by windin’ a piller-case, or somethin’ round the top of his head, the hat would fit on, jest as you would fix a small cork into a big bottle.
So that bein’ arrainged, my next thought was for my own hat, and I thought mournfully as I examined it, mine would be as much too small as his was too big; it was an old one of Tirzah Ann’s, it was pure white, but it was small forher, and nobody could have got me even to have tried it onto my head, for love or money. But in such a nature as J. Allen’s wife’s,principleis all in all.
And as I looked in the glass and see how awfully I looked in it, a feelin’ of grandeur—self sacrificin’ nobility and patrotism swelled up in me, and made my face look redder than ever, I am naturally very fresh colored. And I felt that for the sake of Horace and principle, I could endure the burnin’ sun, and mebby the scoffs and sneers of Jonesville, they bein’ most all on the side of Grant. I took a old white silk bunnet linin’ of mine, and put a new bindin’ round the edge,it bein’ formally bound with pink. And then after readin’ a chapter in Fox’es Book of Martyrs—a soul stirrin’ chapter, concernin’ them that was biled in oil and baked on gridirens for principle—I sallied out to get a feather to put onto it.
We hadn’t no white feathers by us, and I shouldn’t have felt like runnin’ Josiah into any extra expense to buy one, if there had been a feather store in the door yard. But our old rooster “Hail the Day,” as Thomas Jefferson calls him, had the most curlin’est, and foamin’est tail feathers you ever see, white as snow. And inspired by the most pure and noble and lofty sentiments that can animate the human breast, I chased up that old rooster for nigh onto half an hour. At last I cornered him behind the barn, and as I held him tight to my breast, and pulled out by main strength two long slim feathers, that quirled and waved in a invitin’ manner, I says to him,
“This is hard for you, old Hail the Day. But you are not the rooster I take you to be, you are not like your mistress, if you are not willin’ to suffer in the cause of Right.”
He flopped his wings, when I let him go, and crowed nobly. I fixed the feathers in and we set out. But I was more scairt than hurt in the line of scoffs. As we went into Jonesville not a scoff did I see—not a single scoff. No! they all smiled as they looked at us, they see the power of principle, and they was proud of us. Some of ’em laughed, they admired us so.
VISIT TO JONESVILLE.
VISIT TO JONESVILLE.
We drove up to the store and I went in with my butter and eggs, Josiah havin’ business to the blacksmiths. The clerk looked at me, and he smiled, and says he,
“I see you are for Horace Greeley.” He almost snickered but he checked himself, looked meachin’, as he see my keen gray eye fixed onto his hat which he had on, it was a kind of a mice coler, no principle shone on it of any kind.
“Yes,” says I, “I am for Horace,” and agin I looked keenly and searchin’ly at that hat, and says I “Be you on either side or be you on the fence?”
“Wall,” says he “I am kinder on the fence at the present time. But I didn’t get up there because I am a coward, I got up there through policy; when you are on the fence, you haint a steppin’ on the feet of either party, it is a safe place, and it is a sightly place, you can see better than you can on the ground.”
“When do you calculate to get off?” says I.
“Oh right after ’lection,” says he. “I shall get off on the side that beats.”
I see here was a chance for me to do good and says I,
“Young man, ridin’ a fence never carried any man or woman into nobility or honor,” says I, “you may saddle and bridle a fence with all the velvet cushioned caution, and silver mounted excuses, and shinin’ policy you are a mind to, but you never could get Josiah Allen’s wife on to it, she had ruther walk afoot,” says I,“them brave warriors that go canterin’ doun life’s battle field, leadin’ on the forlorn hope in the cause of Right, don’t go ridin’ a fence.”
He looked stricken, and I asked him in a milder tone to look at his green braige for viels. He took off that hat and threw it doun behind the counter, and brought out the braige, and I bought right there on the spot a yard and a quarter of it. I then bought a pair of new cotton gloves, a good sized umbrella, a pair of morocco shoes, a pair of pink elastic garters, and two as good stockin’s as Jonesville afforded, and butter would pay for. I haint one to flounce the outside of the platter, and let the inside go bony and ragged. I haint no opinion of wolves on the outside, and sheep on the inside, I want to be sheep clear to the bone, in dress as well as principle. Wall, who should come into the store, jest as I was examinin’ the green braige through my spectacles, but Betsey Bobbet. My purchases lay all round me on the counter, and says she,
“Josiah Allen’s wife, what means this extravagant outlay of expendature?”
Says I, as coolly as if I went there every mornin’ before breakfast,
“I am goin’ to New York village on a tower.”
She fairly screamed out, “What a coincidence!”
Says I calmly, “It haint no such thing, it is green braige for a viel. It is 75 cents a yard.”
“You do not understand me, Josiah Allen’s wife,”says she. “I mean that it is so singulah and coinciding that I am goin’ theah too. Cousin Melindy, she that married Ebenezah Williams, is just goin’ with the consumption. And I felt that duty was a drawin’ of me theah. As I told motheh, in case of anything’s happenin’, in case that Melindy should expiah, how sweet and soothin’ it would be to Ebenezah to have somebody theah, that could feel for him. It would about kill Ebinezah to lose Melindy, and I feel that it would be so sweet and comfortin’ for him to have somebody on hand to lean on;” she smiled sweetly as she continued, “there is almost a certainty that Melindy is about to be took from our aching hearts. But I fall back on the scripture, and on my duty, and try to feel as if I could give her up. When do you start?”
“Thursday mornin’,” says I in a tone as cold as a grindstone in January, for I see what was before me.
She clasped her two hands and smiled on me two times, and cried out agin, “Oh, what anotheh coincidence! jest the day I was intending to embark. Oh,” says she, “how sweet it will be for you to have a congenial companion on the way, as the poet Robinson Selkirk sweetly singeth,
‘Oh solitude, where are the charmsMr. Sage hath seen in thy face?’
‘Oh solitude, where are the charmsMr. Sage hath seen in thy face?’
‘Oh solitude, where are the charmsMr. Sage hath seen in thy face?’
‘Oh solitude, where are the charms
Mr. Sage hath seen in thy face?’
Don’t you say so, Josiah Allen’s wife?”
“I respect Mr. Sage,” says I, “he is a man I admire,and Mr. Selkirk don’t know beans,” and I added in frigid tones, “when the bag is untied.” I see that my emotions was a gettin’ the better of me, I see my principals was a totterin’. I recollected that I was a member of the Methodist meetin’ house, and the words of a him come back to me, with a slight change in ’em to suit the occasion.
“Shall I be carried to New York,On floury bags of ease?”
“Shall I be carried to New York,On floury bags of ease?”
“Shall I be carried to New York,On floury bags of ease?”
“Shall I be carried to New York,
On floury bags of ease?”
I turned and shouldered my cross.
“Betsey we will set sail together Thursday mornin’.” I then turned silently and left the store, for I felt than any further effort would have been too much for me.
Thursday mornin’ found me to the depott in good season. Betsey also was on time. I didn’t feel haughty nor at all proud, but still I felt that I was a independent householder startin’ to New York village on a tower at my own expense. I see that all the car folks felt friendly towards me for thier was a pleasant smile on their faces every time they looked at me and Betsey.
I wasn’t trimmed off so much as Betsey, but I looked well. I had on that good calico dress, a large black silk mantilly, a good shirred silk bunnet large enough to shade my face some, my bran new cotton gloves, my veil and my umbrell.
Betsey, I always thought put on too much to look well, howsomever everybody to their own mind.She had on a pale blue parmetta dress, with flounces and puckers onto it, a overskirt and a greek bender of the same, trimmed with checkered delain, out on a biasin’, a close fittin’ bask of the delain, which was pink and yellow plaid and which was pinked out on the edge with a machine. She had on a white bobbinet lace hat, jest big enough to cover her bump of self-esteem, trimmed with red and yellow roses and long ends of otter colored ribbon and white lace, then she had long cornelian ear rings, a string of beads round her neck, and a locket and a big blue breast pin and a cornelian cross. A pair of new white cotton gloves, trimmed with two rows of broad white cotton edgin’ five cents a yard—for I seen her buy it—and two horsehair bracelets. And with her new teeth and her long bran new tow curls, and waterfalls and frizzles all full of otter colored rosettes, I tell you she looked gay.
She says to me as she met my keen gaze.
“I don’t know but what you think I am foolish Josiah Allen’s wife, in enrobing myself in my best a coming on the road. But these are my sentiments. I knew we should get theah before night, and I should proceed at once to Ebinezah’s, and if anything should be a happening, if it should be the house of mourning, I thought it would be so comforting to Ebinezah, to see me looking beautiful and cheerful. Yon know theah is everything in first impressions.I mean of course,” she added hastily, “that I am that sorry for poor lonely widdowers and especially Ebinezah, that if I could be a comfort to them, I would be willing to sacrifice a tablespoonful of my heart’s best blood, much moah this blue parmetta dress. These are my sentiments Josiah Allen’s wife.”
Says I coldly, “I should know they was yours Betsey, I should know they was yours, if I should meet ’em in my porridge dish.”
But the time drew near for the cars to bear me away from Josiah, and I began to feel bad.
I don’t believe in husbands and wives partin’ away from each other, one livin’ in Europe, and one in New York village, one in Wall street, and the other on a Long Branch, one in Boston, and the other in North America. As the poet truly observes,
“When the cat is away the mice’s will go to playin’.”
As for me, I want my husband Josiah where I can lay my hand on him any time, day or night, I know then what he is about. Though so far as jealousy is concerned, Bunker Hill monument, and Plymouth Rock would be jest as likely to go to flirtin’ and cuttin’ up, as either of us. We have almost cast iron confidence in each other. But still it is a sweet and satisfyin’ thought to know jest where your consort is, and what he is about, from hour to hour.
Josiah and me didn’t shed no tears as we each of us parted, though our hearts ached with anguish we both of us felt it our duty to be calm. I felt a tear risin’ to my eye, but with a almost fearful effort I choked it back and said in low accents as we grasped holt of each others hands at partin’,
“Good by, Josiah, remember to feed the hens, and keep the suller door shet up.”
He too struggled nobly for composure and conquered, and in a voice of marble calm he said,
“Good by Samantha, don’t spend no more money than is necessary.”
The Ingin hitched to the front car give a wild yell, as if he felt our two woes—Josiah’s and mine—and we parted for the first time in goin’ on 15 years.
As I sunk back on the wooden bottomed car seat, perfectly onmanned by my efforts at commandin’ myself, for the first time I felt regret at my wild and perilous undertakin’.
We had to change cars about noon, as we went into the depot to get our tickets, the ticket man looked so kinder lonesome stuck in there alone, for all the world as if he had done somethin’ and his mother had shet him up, that I thought I would make a little talk with him.
He favored Celestine Wilkins’es husband considerable, jest such a meachin’ lookin’ feller, and I knew Celestine’s husband had a brother down this way somewhere, and so to kinder open a conversation with him, I asked him “If he ever had any relation that married a girl by the name of Gowdey?”
You ought to have heard how that feller snapped me up—he couldn’t have answered me any shorter, if I had asked him to run away with me.
But thinks’es I to myself, he has got morbid through lonesomness. I pitied him shet up alone there, and so in a few minutes I begun agin.
“I didn’t know but he was your brother, he hasa good deal such a meachin’ look to him,” and says I, “The country round here hain’t so pleasant as Jonesville, do you think it is sir?”
“He didn’t know or care nothin’ about Jonesville.”
His tone was sharper than that sword aged two, that the bible tells of.
Says I, “Young man you needn’t take my head quite off, if you never did see Jonesville nor had any other advantages. I hain’t to blame for it.” And thinks’es I to myself, you may be lonesome for all of me, you may die of lonesomness for all I care, I shan’t try to make any more talk with you to make your time pass off easier.
We got on to the cars agin and got a good seat. I wanted to set by an open winder, and Betsey didn’t. I mistrust she thought the wind would take the kink out of her frizzles, and so she went on a seat or 2 ahead of me. There was a lot of fashionable lookin’ folks came in too, and one of ’em came along and set right down in the seat with me, the cars bein’ pretty full. She was dressed up like a doll, but she didn’t act stuck up a mite, my opinion is, she knew what belonged to good manners, and I offered her some caraway, for I liked her looks. She took it and thanked me for it, and says I to make talk with her,
“Are you goin’ far on the cars?”
She said, “She wasn’t goin’ far on this route, she was goin’ to a waterin’ place.”
“How far?” says I.
“Oh 2 or 300 miles,” says she.
“Good land!” says I, “Can’t you find any water nearer hum? Why,” says I, “I should think you would be choked before you got there.” Says I, “Our cistern and well sometimes gives out in hot weather, but Josiah always draws water from the creek,” why says I, full of pity for her, “If I hadn’t any water to the house, and nobody to draw it for me I should rather drive myself to the creek and water myself 3 times a day, than to start off on the cars so far after it. Howsumever every body to their own mind.”
She kinder laughed with her eyes, and, said somethin’ about “seasides” and “sea bathin’” or somethin’ and I felt it was my duty to say to her,
“You needn’t go 300 miles for that, you can get good seasides to Jonesville for 75 cents. Tirzah Ann, Josiah’s girl by his first wife, got one for that. I don’t wear hats myself, except,” says I with dignity, “in the cause of Right and for the good of the Human Race. And as for seein’ bathin’, I myself would go the other way, ruther than foller it up; howsumever everybody to thier own taste.” But I kep’ thinkin’ of it, and I couldn’t help breakin’ out agin, and speakin’ my mind; says I, in a good deal colder accents, “I would as soon go to a horse race—and sooner,” for the more I thought of it the more I thought that no virtuous woman would start off 300 miles to see bathin’goin’ on. I acted offish after that, and was sorry I had give her the caraway.
Her face looked red, and she started up and went back and sot doun by some of her mates, and I was glad she did. She pretended to be a laughin’, and she was talkin’ to ’em awful busy; but I see one eye was on me the most of the time—she felt guilty.
At the very next station house two fellers come in that everybody seemed to be lookin’ at, and payin’ attention to. But they didn’t seem to mind it. They come in and sot doun right in the seat between me and Betsey.
After they had sot doun, one of ’em took a cigar out of his pocket, and put it in his mouth. It wasn’t lit, but he held it between his teeth as if it was a great comfort to him. Thinks’es I, it is kinder queer works, but I can stand it if the R. R. Company can. But Betsey leaned her head back, and says to him,
“Was you aware, kind sir, that cigars was confiscated on the cars?”
He didn’t say a word, but held on to it with his teeth as if it was dreadful comfortin’ to him. And she asked him over again. But not a word did he say. I guess she asked him five times—but not a word did she get out of him. And then she turned to the feller with him, the smilin’ chap, and says she,
“Is your companion a deaf male?”
He smiled. Agin she asked him,
“Is your pardner deprived of his eahs?”
“Oh no,” says he, “he has got ears,” and agin he smiled.
Thinks’es I, it is pretty queer works, but it is none of my business. I guess we had rode nigh on to an hour in jest that way, Betsey kinder oneasy and nestlin’ round, I calm and placid in demeaniour and one of the men between us a holdin’ that cigar in his mouth, as if it was indeed consolin’, and the other one a smilin’ blandly, at nothin’ in particular. Everybody in the cars seemed to be a lookin’ at ’em, and thinks’es I, it is no wonder, for of all the good natured lookin’ men I ever see, he is the cap sheaf. Thinks’es I, I wish every ticket agent in the world could have his benine face to hang up before ’em, for a sampler, for if there was ever a race that had the appearance of bein’ brought up on vinegar and ten-penny nails, it is them.
After a while, I got kinder hungry. My basket hung right up over them two men, and I rose up, and went to reach up for it, when the smilin’ chap got up a smilin’ and says he to me, “Can’t I assist you, madam?” and he reached up smilin’ as sweet as a rose, to take it doun, when all of a sudden the handle slipped out at one end, and doun come the contents right on to his face. One nut-cake, a long, slim one, sot up straight on his nose, as handsome as you ever see a circus man ride a white horse. But most mournful of all, I had some biled eggs, and unbeknown to me, Tirzah Ann had took ’em out too quick, before they was much more than warmed through, and they broke onto his face and all run doun into his whiskers. But if you will believe it, that blessed man smiled.